Wanapum State Park/Ginkgo Petrified Forest – Vantage, WA

After coming from a very stressful Thanksgiving holiday weekend, I stopped here for some peace and tranquility. Perfect, only four RV’s including mine, were in the park. No problem getting a river view!

The road to the park is 3 miles off Interstate 90 and is a bit of a lonely road through a bunch of sagebrush. Then, at the park entrance, you have a very sharp left turn, less than a full 90 degree angle. In wintertime, only one loop (the loop that overlooks the Columbia River) is open.

Each site is paved and quite spacious and includes a large grassy area with a great picnic table and fire ring. Also, each site has full hookups, to include sewer! However, in wintertime, the water is shut off (the water faucets are removed). You can obtain fresh water at the entrance to the RV loop. The pull-through spots are on the outer edge of the loop and are all shaped in the “arc” shape, but it’s a wide arc, with plenty of room for a toad. I highly recommend Spot #21, it’s on a corner, with a wide view of the river. Not all pull-throughs have a river view. The back-ins are on the inside of the loop.

Restrooms were very clean, the best I have seen at a state park. Showers were 50 cents for three minutes. TV reception is very spotty on analog channels, you will be lucky to get five stations via antenna. Forget about getting the High Def channels. I don’t know how satellites would work here. I’m sure this park is quite busy in the summer, but if it’s winter and you are traveling on Interstate 90, this is a very serene place to stop for a night and get your sanity back!

We had a very windy site (#42 corner one), We couldn’t setup our tent and came back. This site is so windy that we couldnt keep a tarp on the ground (we were there on August 14th). We saw one tent on #41 broken by the wind. This might work if you camp on RV

This park is beautiful and the outer pull-through sites quite spacious, but the wind can be a bit of a problem. Also, during the summer, when they have a concert at the Gorge, this park is VERY noisy late at night when the party people return from the concert. Forget getting any sleep after 1AM and there doesn’t seem to be anyone i.e. camp host or ranger, to try to enforce the rules. So nice to wake up with someone ralphing outside your bedroom window!

I know it can get windy there, but when I stayed, there was NO wind. However, I am wondering if I got an inadvertent “power surge” from the electric pole. I was running two space heaters and I woke up at 2:00 AM to being very cold and noticing that I had tripped a circuit breaker. Normally on 30 amp I can run two space heaters no problem.